Tuesday, July 9, 2013

YOU’RE beside yourself. Those five or 10 extra pounds just won’t come off!

You have checked, double-checked and triple-checked. You’re working out. You’re even lifting weights and you know that muscle is heavier than fat. You’re not even weighing yourself; instead, relying on your skinny jeans to gauge your relative weight loss or gain. You are eating good, whole food, not processed food. You’re not hormonal or otherwise dealing with health complications that can inhibit weight loss.

You’re close to pulling your hair out or scratching somebody’s eyes out. Where is your LL Cool J six pack???!!! What is the problem????!!! Simple. You may not be getting enough sleep.

We’ve learned that sleep deprivation is not good for the heart (http://www.ow.ly/io9Q6). But according to a recent study, sleep deprivation can also lead to weight gain, obesity and the mess of problems that come with that. In other words, that last five, 10 or stubborn 30 is lazing about because YOU, my friend, are not getting enough slumber.

These findings were presented last month at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting (ENDO 2013, http://www.endo-society.org/endo2013/) in San Francisco. A group of researchers discovered that by monitoring healthy, slim young adults that the study participants had in their blood stream higher levels of a molecule that controls the pleasurable aspects of eating when they got 4.5 hours of sleep a night as opposed to the standard 8.5 hours of sleep ... More shortly.